


Nothing to Say

by probably_somewhere



Category: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Homophobic Language, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21928114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/probably_somewhere/pseuds/probably_somewhere
Summary: Ari got so mad when he imagined what Dante went through when a group of guys beat him up in an alley. But Dante, he didn't have to imagine it at all. He was there. It was him they hurt, all because he was kissing a boy.
Relationships: Aristotle Mendoza/Dante Quintana, Daniel G/Dante Quintana
Comments: 1
Kudos: 40





	Nothing to Say

Dante checked the clock maybe fifteen times while he was at work that day. That’s a high-ball estimate, too, and he was frankly proud of himself for looking to the back wall so few times when it was _right there_ where he could see it from the register.

“Meet me out back when you’re shift’s over,” he’d said. There was a look in his eye. Both of them knew what he meant. Despite himself, Dante’s fingers had been tingling ever since.

It’s not that he was nervous about kissing Daniel. In all honesty, Daniel wasn’t even that great. But he hadn’t kissed anyone since Ari and the memory of Ari’s lips on his, well. That had more to do with the tingling than he cared to admit. So he pushed Ari out of his mind and focused on the idea of Daniel. Of _kissing_ Daniel, and that didn’t sound half bad.

He also just liked kissing in general. And now he knew he liked kissing boys better than he liked kissing girls, so he could really focus in on this finding-boys-to-kiss-him thing. And this was one thing he couldn’t let Ari ruin for him, not anymore. Ari didn’t love him like he loved Ari, and Dante just had to learn to be okay with that and move on.

So that’s what he was going to do.

With Daniel.

In exactly two minutes.

Okay, so now he’d checked the clock sixteen times. Still pretty good, if you asked him.

An older woman hobbled up to the register. A store basket was hooked over one of her arms, somehow a perfect match in color to her red dress. It was a beautiful dress, traditionally Mexican, and Dante would have told her so on any other night but today he was too distracted. Instead, Dante gave her an easy smile as he helped her heft the basket onto the counter. “Did you find everything alright?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the woman. Her hair was more white than black, but mostly it was just gray. She looked like Dante imagined all grandmothers should look like: soft around the edges but radiating authority from her very core. He could practically see it coming off of her. If she told him to go clean his room right then, he just might have done it.

But Daniel was waiting for him outside.

Dante swallowed heavily.

The woman said something to him in Spanish, and his nerves dissolved while he fought to understand her words. He caught enough to smile and return a “Sí, gracias,” hoping she neither called him out for his poor pronunciation nor continued to talk to him.

He told her the total in English and wished her a good day. She and her beautiful red dress smiled at him and walked away. Any other time, he might have felt bad about it, because it was his policy to be as nice to old people as possible, but there were other things on his mind just then. Only a few seconds passed and then he couldn’t help but check the clock again.

His shift was over.

He might have felt bad about abandoning the register, too, but there was no one in the store and it was one of those days that he was breaking his own rules. Rule one: be good to old people. Rule two: don’t leave the register unattended. Rule three: no thinking about Ari when there are other guys out there who want to kiss him.

He wasn’t too happy about that last one, either. But Dante was trying his best to focus on Daniel. Because Daniel wanted to kiss him, and Ari didn’t. Ari could hardly even look at him after they’d kissed. He knew that Ari was trying to be okay with who Dante was, but it still hurt to know that there was now this fissure between the two of them that he didn’t know how to build a bridge over. So for right now, he wouldn’t focus on that. He was focusing on Daniel and, specifically, on kissing Daniel.

Daniel was good looking and he kind of exuded this air of really knowing how to kiss. Plus, he went to Cathedral on a music scholarship so that meant he was a serious guy, right? So if they wanted to do more than kiss, like go on a date or whatever, then his parents would think he was okay.

That is, if they were okay with the whole part about Daniel being a guy.

Yeah, Dante still didn’t know how he was going to deal with _that_ whole situation.

He unclipped the name tag from his shirt pocket and left it on the shelf next to everyone else’s. His replacement shift had just walked in, breathing heavily because he probably ran to get here on time, and Dante exchanged a quick hello with him before he rushed into the front part of the store. Then Dante was on his own, and he took a few seconds to finger-comb his hair, wipe some oil off of his nose and forehead with the inside of his shirt, and calm his racing heart. Daniel may not have been the guy Dante wanted to be kissing most, but he could still make him nervous, and that had to count for something.

Dante took a few deep breaths, wishing there was a mirror or something back here for him to check and make sure he looked okay. His shoulders had broadened from being on the swim team, and he really he would be an attractive guy one day. With his hair freshly cut, he looked like an adult. He looked like someone who was ready to get out there and make out with a guy in an alley.

He shook out his shoulders and arms and rolled his ankles to expel the tension from them, like a runner getting ready for a race. In hopes that his voice wouldn’t break once he got out there, he cleared his throat a few times. And then he had no choice but to be ready.

The door to the back alley stuck like it always did when he pushed it open. The hinges sagged, so its bottom edge scraped across the ground and filled the alley with a screech that sent a shiver up Dante’s spine. Even so, he savored the extra second of preparation that the slow door gave him, before he nudged it shut and let it lock behind him and leaving him in the alley.

In the alley with Daniel.

Dante was in the alley with Daniel.

Daniel, the boy who wanted to kiss him.

All the blood in his body felt burning hot and his heart kicked against his chest. Daniel was leaning against the building opposite the drug store, flicking a lighter on and off while he waited. Dante had planned to say something all cool and suave, but instead he said, “Do you smoke?”

Daniel left the flame up for a few seconds and then let it flicker out. He put the lighter back in his pocket, and Dante saw no evidence of cigarettes around him, other than the trampled remains of his coworkers smoke breaks. “No,” he said with a shrug.

“Oh.” His throat was suddenly dry. It almost made him cough, but he swallowed instead. He took a few steps toward Daniel, until they were standing at a normal distance apart. Not a kissing distance.

Dante hoped, with a sudden ferocity, that a “yet” belonged at the end of that idea. They weren’t within kissing distance, _yet._ But he supposed it was up to Daniel to put it there, because they were taking turns on who made the next move. First, Dante told him that his jeans looked good on him. Then Daniel had asked when his shift at the drug store was. Then Dante told him not only when it started, but when it ended. Daniel came into the store and told Dante to meet him outside. Now Dante was outside, standing at normal standing distance and waiting for Daniel to add the “yet” which was really an “and then” when he thought about it.

And then he did.

Daniel pushed his back off the wall, making it seem like they were closer than before. He took a step toward Dante, so they really were closer. They were no longer in normal people distance. They were now, officially, in almost-kissing distance.

“I’m glad you showed up,” Daniel said. His hands hovered at his sides like he wasn’t sure what to do with them. Dante watched them out of the corners of his eyes, and the nervous way that Daniel chewed on his lip with his direct line of sight.

“Me too,” Dante said. He scuffed one sneaker against the pavements below him, for once not wishing that he wasn’t wearing shoes. Alleys, as a general rule, were disgusting, and this one was no different. Cigarette butts littered the ground and there were at least five bottles’ worth of broken glass between them and the street.

The sun was low enough that it only made it into the alley by hitting the pavement on the street outside and the roofs above them and angling inside. It was still light enough that Dante could see the finer details of Daniel’s face, but with none of the harsh bright-and-shadow that came with direct sunlight. He saw the curve of Daniel’s nose, how his hair was pasted against the side of his head with sweat from being outside for more than four minutes in the El Paso summer heat. He saw how quickly Daniel’s eyes darted between Dante’s eyes and Dante’s mouth. He saw the flash of surprise when he finally made the decision to actually, really, physically kiss Daniel.

Dante took the final step to close the distance between them and put his hands on either side of Daniel’s face, just below his ears. His fingertips slid in Daniel’s sweat but he ignored it and instead focused on not missing Daniel’s mouth with his own as he pressed him back up against the wall and kissed him. Daniel let out a hot breath through his nose that sounded kind of like a pleased sigh and kissed him back. Dante felt the tug of hands on his waist pulling him closer and let them lead him forward one more half step until there was no space between him and Daniel and Daniel and the wall.

It felt good to kiss Daniel. It felt good to kiss Daniel and _not_ Ari, and to not think about Ari while he was kissing Daniel. It did him no good think about kissing Ari, so from now on it was Daniel who he would think about kissing.

Not Ari.

He would not be kissing Aristotle Mendoza anymore, and he would not be _thinking_ about kissing Aristotle Mendoza anymore. Not at all. There was now a moratorium on thinking about anything Ari-related while he was kissing Daniel.

Daniel wasn’t a bad kisser, after all. His mouth was kind of wet, but mouths were supposed to be wet. And his grip was tight on Dante’s waist, but at least that meant he wanted to be kissing him. So he could be okay with this. As the seconds passed, Dante felt bolder and more sure of himself, and he kissed Daniel harder and moved his hands from Daniel’s neck to his shoulders to his chest. He explored what it felt like to be touching another guy like this. He familiarized himself with how Daniel’s body felt, and compared it in his mind to how Daniel looked.

He’d just decided that he was enjoying kissing Daniel when someone swore at the other end of the alley.

Dante jumped back from Daniel like a scared cat. He was certain that the look of horror on his face mimicked the one on Daniel’s as they looked from each other to the person who’d spoken.

Not person, Dante realized. _People_ . His gut sank like a brick to the ground and his heart kicked into overtime in the worst kind of way. This was the heart-pounding and stomach-sinking that screamed _danger_ into every inch of his body.

“Did you just see these _pendejos_ kissing?” one of them asked. It was Julian Enriquez, Dante realized with a start. His dad owned a car shop and knew Ari’s family.

“Yeah, man. A coupla fags, looks like.”

Daniel’s shoes scuffed against the concrete as he flinched under the words. Dante felt the slap of that word, too, like he’d been struck directly across the face.

“Don’t make no sense,” said a third boy. Dante knew him, too. He knew all of these boys at least by face if not by name, but right now he didn’t recognize any of them. The sunset colored their skin red and their expressions were twisted into disgust. They thought that Dante and Daniel were vile. “Boys ain’t meant to be kissing boys. It’s not right.”

Dante’s throat squeezed tight, making it hard for him to breathe, let alone speak. He wanted to tell these boys to leave him and Daniel alone, and to keep walking if they didn’t want to see two boys kissing. Daniel wasn’t speaking, either, and his whole body was shaking.

“You think we should teach them what happens to faggots?” the first boy said. He looked at each of his friends and then back at Dante and Daniel. “I seen you around, Dante Quintana. I know you’re one of them bookish types. You want us to teach you a lesson, don’t you?”

Hearing his own name with such hatred wrenched him out of his paralysis. He was Dante Quintana. He didn’t let mean boys call him mean words. He didn’t cower away when someone tried to hurt him with their hatred. He didn’t stand silently while someone tried to make him feel ashamed for being himself.

Because Dante Quintana was not now, nor would he ever be, ashamed of himself.

“Are you done yet?” he asked. He tried to sound bored but his fingers prickled with anxiety.

Julian’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”

“I said, are you done yet?” Dante repeated. “Because I’d like to wrap this up. I have more important things to be doing.”

“ _Dante_ ,” hissed Daniel quietly. “Stop it.”

Dante ignored him. “It’s just that I’ve heard the whole thing before. Going to hell and being unnatural and whatever else. So I’d like to skip over that and get to the part where you leave.”

“Don’t get smart with me, Quintana,” Julian warned.

Joe Moncada added, “You better watch your mouth.”

The four boys were all walking slowly closer to where Dante and Daniel were standing. The weight of their steps and the snarls on their faces set off every alarm bell in Dante’s head but he couldn’t stop himself. “Don’t you get tired of being so mean?” he asks. “I would be so tired of being mean by now if I was you.”

Julian, at the front of the group, was close to Dante then. He was not at normal-people distance. If he didn’t look so angry, Dante would have thought again about it being kissing distance. But, no. This was punching distance.

Julian added the “and then.”

Dante’s whole body recoiled from the blow. He’d flinched back enough that it didn’t hit his face fully, but Julian’s knuckles still snapped Dante’s head to one side and he stumbled along with it. He instinctively put his hands to his face and felt, already, a trickle of blood from his nose. So that was what it felt like to get punched. Huh.

He straightened and turned back to face Julian and his friends. “Great idea. If you hit me enough times, you’ll beat the gay right out of me.”

“Dante,” Daniel hissed again. He was backing up, glancing behind him to make sure that there was a path out the side of the alley that wasn’t blocked by a group of boys who wanted to hurt them. There wasn’t.

Dante didn’t wipe the blood from his face, and instead let it dribble down onto his lip, and when he spoke he tasted it like the wet metal of the diving board at the swimming pool. “Four to two hardly seems fair,” he said. His whole face throbbed with pain, and he held his hands up, palms open instead of in the fists he knew would get him punched again instantly.

It didn’t matter. Julian hit him again anyway.

He stumbled back and sideways into the brick wall of the alley, against which he’d pressed Daniel just minutes earlier. It felt like a millenia ago, the only constant across the moments the pounding of his heart in his chest.

The four boys all stepped in toward him, and in their moment of distraction Daniel shot past them and out the alley into the street. He was a fast runner, just not as fast as Ari. But he didn’t have to be fast, only faster than four boys who were already focused on someone else.

His footfalls faded into nothing.

“Four to one,” Dante wheezed out. “Even better.”

The next blow was a knee that hit him squarely in the stomach, so hard he had to swallow a retch. He stuck out a hand to steady himself against the wall and took another step backwards, conscious of the fast-decreasing space between himself and the back of the alley. He couldn’t escape this; he could only delay the inevitable.

But it was time to face the truth, wasn’t it?

Dante Quintana was going to be beaten up for kissing boys.

Ari didn’t want to kiss boys.

Ari didn’t want to kiss Dante.

No matter how badly Dante wanted to kiss him.

And Dante didn’t want to get beaten up without fighting back, no matter how much Dante hated the idea of hurting someone else, even when they wanted to hurt him. So instead, when Dante tightened his hands into fists, he thought of Ari.

Finally, finally, he let himself think of Ari.

He thought of how tough Ari was, and he thought of how Ari’s would knock Julian’s punches out of the way and strike back with his own. And so Dante did that, too.

One, maybe two, of Dante’s punches landed, but he knew from the moment they’d blocked him in the alley that he would fight a losing battle. Two of the boys grabbed Dante’s arms and held him up against the wall, and panic rose in Dante’s throat at his sudden inability to protect his face and his gut from the impending blows.

Julian took a step in and hit him in the stomach. Dante nearly gagged with the pain. The other boy who wasn’t holding him back and took his turn punching Dante across the face. He felt his nose crack and he couldn’t hold back a moan of agony.

And then another punch came, and another. As each punch landed it felt like Ari telling him, “Didn’t work for me.”

It felt like him pulling away from Dante and refusing to look at him after they kissed.

It felt like Ari not calling him for days afterwards and knowing in the pit of his stomach that he’d driven him off, his one friend, the boy he loved.

Ari never would have run away if someone was trying to beat up him and Dante, and that made Dante feel Daniel’s absence even more sharply. Not that he blamed Daniel, really, if he could be anywhere else right now, he would be, too.

The boys let go of Dante’s arms and his legs collapsed underneath him. Dante fell into a heap on the alley floor, covered in cigarette butts and grime. He curled into a ball as tight as he could, not even caring that the concrete reeked and it was getting all over him. He hid his face and protected his stomach and ribs even though they already throbbed loudly with every beat of his heart.

Fingers closed around his hair and yanked his head back. Dante expected a boot to the face, but instead, there was another face from one of the boys kneeling next to him. “Not so smart now, huh?” Joe demanded. “Don’t have anything to say?”

Dante summoned up the rest of his courage and spat at the ground next to Joe’s boot.

He would not be ashamed.

“Be careful,” Dante warned. “Get too close to me and the gay might rub off on you.”

Joe skittered back so fast that Dante would have laughed if he didn’t hurt so much.

A shoe pressed Dante’s face roughly into the alley floor. Julian put enough weight into keeping him down that the pebbles and glass shards dug into Dante’s skin and he sucked in dirt with every panicked breath. He could only breathe through his mouth because his nose was filled with blood.

“He clearly hasn’t learned his lesson yet,” Julian said. He twisted his foot a little on Dante’s head. “This is what happens to queers, Quintana. The sooner you cram that idea into your skull the better off you’ll be.”

And then they started kicking him again. And then and then and then.

Dante retreated into his head because the pain there, at least, was familiar. He’d worried it down to smooth edges ever since he and Ari had kissed. It was rejection, and embarrassment, and regret, but somewhere deep within it was love so it wasn’t sharp anymore, not like the pointed toes of shoes and boots in his chest, his legs, his back.

The next time they asked him what he had to say, all that lay in front of them was a shell of a boy who had no words left. His limp body rested on the alley floor, fighting to stay alive even though his fight with consciousness had been lost.

The boys left, and an elderly woman in a beautiful red dress found him. She knelt over him and asked him if he was okay, first in Spanish and then in English. But he said nothing. The ambulance came for him a few minutes later.

Can you imagine, Dante Quintana without any words left?

**Author's Note:**

> I've been rolling this idea around for months, and the draft has been in my documents folder for just as long. Now it's finally finished, and I have a better idea of what I think the attack was like for Dante, and what he would have done, and how he might have fought back.
> 
> Let me know what you think! Comments and kudos are, always, appreciated, and I take fic requests :)


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